The young man at the right does not know how to drink. Nevertheless, he has been selected by a friend to act as Best Man at his wedding and has attended the Bachelor Dinner. Instead of doing what he should do under the circumstances, he is making himself conspicuous by remaining coherent while the others sing “Mademoiselle from Alabam’.” Had the Bridegroom provided himself with a copy of PERFECT BEHAVIOR he would have known better than to have selected him.
MAKING THE FIRST CALL
The custom of social “calls” between young men and young women is one of the prettiest of etiquette’s older conventions, and one around which clusters a romantic group of delightful traditions. In this day and generation, what with horseless carriages, electric telephones and telegraphs, and dirigible gas bags, a great many of the older forms have been allowed to die out, greatly, I believe, to our discredit. “Speed, not manners,” seems to be the motto of this century. I hope that there still exist a few young men who care enough about “good form” to study carefully to perfect themselves in the art of “calling.” Come, Tom, Dick and Harry—drop your bicycles for an afternoon and fill your minds with something besides steam engines and pneumatic tires!
The first call at the home of any young lady of fashion is an extremely important social function, and too great care can not be taken that you prepare yourself thoroughly in advance. It would be well to leave your work an hour or two earlier in the afternoon, so that you can go home and practice such necessary things as entering or leaving a room correctly. Most young men are extremely careless in this particular, and unless you rehearse yourself thoroughly in the proper procedure you are apt to find later on to your dismay that you have made your exit through a window onto the fire-escape instead of through the proper door.
CONVERSATION AND SOME OF ITS USES
Your conversation should also be planned more or less in advance. Select some topic in which you think your lady friend will be interested, such as, for example, the removal of tonsils and adenoids, and “read up” on the subject so that you can discuss it in an intelligent manner. Find out, for example, how many people had tonsils removed in February, March, April. Contrast this with the same figures for 1880, 1890, 1900. Learn two or three amusing anecdotes about adenoids. Consult Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations” for appropriate verses dealing with tonsils and throat troubles. Finally, and above all, take time to glance through four or five volumes of Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf, for nothing so completely marks the cultivated man as the ability to refer familiarly to the various volumes of the Harvard classics.
A PROPER CALL
Promptly at the time appointed you should arrive at the house where the young lady is staying. In answer to your ring a German police dog will begin to bark furiously inside the house, and a maid will finally come to the door. Removing your hat and one glove, you say, “Is Miss Doe home?” The maid replies, “Yass, ay tank so.” You give her your card and the dog rushes out and bites you on either the right or left leg. You are then ushered into a room in which is seated an old man with a long white beard. He is fast asleep. “Dot’s grampaw,” says the maid, to which you reply, “Oh.” She retires, leaving you alone with grampaw. After a while he opens his eyes and stares at you for a few minutes. He then says, “Did the dog bite you?” You answer, “Yes, sir.” Grampaw then says, “He bites everybody,” and goes back to sleep. Reassured, you light a cigaret. A little boy and girl then come to the door, and, after examining you carefully for several minutes, they burst into giggling laughter and run away. You feel to see if you have forgotten to put on a necktie. A severe looking old lady then enters the room. You rise and bow. “I am Miss Doe’s grandmother. Some one has been smoking in here,” she says, and sits down opposite you. Her remark is not, however, a hint for a cigaret and you should not make the mistake of saying, “I’ve only got Fatimas, but if you care to try one—” It should be your aim to seek to impress yourself favorably upon every member of the young lady’s family. Try to engage the grandmother in conversation, taking care to select subjects in which you feel she would be interested. Conversation is largely the art of “playing up” to the other person’s favorite subject. In this particular case, for example, it would be a mistake to say to Miss Doe’s grandmother, “Have you ever tried making synthetic gin?” or “Do you think any one will ever lick Dempsey?” A more experienced person, and some one who had studied the hobbies of old people, would probably begin by remarking, “Well, I see that Jeremiah Smith died of cancer Thursday,” or “That was a lovely burial they gave Mrs. Watts, wasn’t it?” If you are tactful, you should soon win the old lady’s favor completely, so that before long she will tell you all about her rheumatism and what grampaw can and can’t eat.
Finally Miss Doe arrives. Her first words are, “Have you been waiting long? Hilda didn’t tell me you were here,” to which you reply, “No—I just arrived.” She then says, “Shall we go in the drawing-room?” The answer to this is, “For God’s sake, yes!” In a few minutes you find yourself alone in the drawing-room with the lady of your choice and the courtship proper can then begin.
The best way to proceed is gradually to bring the conversation around to the subject of the “modern girl.” After your preliminary remarks about tonsils and adenoids have been thoroughly exhausted, you should suddenly say, “Well I don’t think girls—nice girls—are really that way.” She replies, of course, “What way?” You answer, “Oh, the way they are in these modern novels. This ‘petting,’ for instance.” She says, “What petting’?” You walk over and sit down on the sofa beside her. “Oh,” you say, “these novelists make me sick—they seem to think that in our generation every time a young man and woman are left alone on a lounge together, they haven’t a thing better to do than put out the light and ‘pet.’ It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” “Isn’t it?” she agrees and reaching over she accidentally pulls the lamp cord, which puts out the light.